Here's a fun fact for you: the whole "throwing golf and pingpong ball" thing Drach talks about at ~11 minutes in is the reason why you don't see any slingers in LARPs. You can sling a stone no problem, a tennis ball is at the edge of viability, but take anything that wouldn't hurt like hell if it hit someone in the face, and you are better off throwing the damned thing by hand - at least you'll have decent rate of fire that way.
King Christian's part in the battle of Kolberger Heide directly inspired the Danish Royal Anthem which in translation is literally called. "King Christian stood by the tall mast." Christian losing his eye in that battle is a good example of the dangers of a sea battle though it in overall terms was one of the less bloody ones fought between the Danish and Swedish navies. Christian IV was pretty naval minded for the time and would make quite a bit of use of the Vanish navy in the wars he was involved in.
Something to remember as far as strafing runs go, for every tracer you see there are 4 regular bullets in the standard belt. 50 caliber API, armor piercing incendiary, bullets, which was a standard load in fighters, can go through between a half to a full inch of armor plate. A plate steel superstructure would be riddled.
It absolutely bears remembering that there are "cannons," there are "rifle-caliber machineguns," and in between and in neither of those two categories is "the .50 cal."
Something to keep in mind is that the guns on many fighters ( incl the f6f- hellcat) although they are many feet apart- converge to a single point somewhere between 200 and 300 yard in front of the aircraft . This multiplies the punch immensely
Looking at the ship under attack - I'm fairly sure it's a Japanese minesweeper or minelayer. If the latter - the results of strafing could be spectacular!
RE heavy bombers with torpedoes, its why the Lancaster had a HUGE and unified bomb bay, because originally there was a design requirement for them to be able to carry a pair of either 18 or 21 inch torpedoes.
Air dropping sea mines was extensively done by the RAF in WWII. But not immediately in front of moving ships. Both Scharhorst and Gneisenau hit mines during their channel dash, but I don't know if those mines were air dropped or delivered by other means.
16:30 Of course, there is another major component to Royal Navy ship names that are associated with foreigners...... "Nice ship, I think I'll have that. And no, I'm not going to rename it. Because there's nothing you can do about it."
In reference Sea Lion and the Home Guard - if you think about it, the "old men" in the HG being WWI vets means that they would have been in their 40s or 50s, men who still would have been physically capable AND experienced. I think a certain British TV program from the 60s-70s has something to do with the image of "old men".
00:48:51 - What damage could a strafing run do to a destroyer? Something else to note is that the .50cal machineguns mounted on American aircraft were usually shooting armor-piercing ammunition because they needed to penetrate through the ever thickening structural metal of ever heavier airframes being developed. Aircraft also usually had some armor plate, anywhere from 5mm to 20mm of hardened steel, to further help keep splinters and bullets out of vital areas. As most ships, even warships, were primarily made up of 5mm to 20mm of softer structural steel plates, any exposed part of a ship's hull or superstructure not covered in actual armor was reasonably vulnerable to penetration by the .50cals, hence the Swiss-cheesing of ships like in the video. However, the .50cals would not be cutting very deep beyond the first plates of a ship, and since destroyers, contrary to many assumptions, do actually have some armor and multiple decks over their citadels (if mostly just to keep out splinters rather than shells), they shouldn't be exploding spectacularly from a few strafing runs. Most footage we have of ships exploding under American .50cals are merchantmen, not warships.
00:00:43 In order to float, the mine would have to contain non-explosive substances, and quite a bit of them. Which reduces their explosive potential for a given size. But in the early stages of the war at least, the various bomber commands seemed to be convinced of their accuracy against ground targets. As it turns out, they were not especially accurate even against stationary targets - presumably it took a while to convince people and come up with a solution - like the buoyancy bomb. 00:49:00 Strafing was also a part of skip-bombing and mast-height bombing (as well as the rockets mentioned), as used in the later parts of the war. Those required a very low-level and straight-in approach, so suppressing the AA gunners with gun or cannon fire would have been vital. There is also the unusual case of the Mosquito 'Tsetse' variant armed with autoloading 57mm gun. Those were mostly intended to put holes in surfaced U-boats, but I suspect a DD wouldn't particularly enjoy that calibre either. 1:09:00 I wonder if a rotary bomb-bay would have increased the number of torpedoes a medium bomber could carry. I know they fixed a similar length-to-weight issue for cruise missiles in some post-war bombers, but I suppose it might have been a bit complicated during WW2.
I think another reason why covered slipways came back into vogue is that they're just plain nicer to work in, especially in places that have cold winters, a rainy season, generally inclement weather, or some combination of the three. It's nice to be out of the wind rain and snow and it's also nice for the yard owner since it means your workers are more productive during the days that weather springs up.
On the Greco/Roman names.... At that period a 'Classical' education as we would call it these days was more or less universal even among Scientists and Engineers, and was common around Europe. Not just in the UK. Having a good grounding in the Classics, and ideally being able to at least read Ancient Greek and/or Latin was the sign of a good education. So that could well be part of it. The Royal Navy had a lot of ships to name, and the people naming those ships were all a good deal more familiar with Greco/Roman mythology than they were with native British mythology. So thats where they took the names from. You see a similar thing in science as well, again all the early scientists were also classically trained and this is *exactly* the reason you see ancient Greek and Latin in so many scientific names. In a way if you consider Latin and Ancient Greek as the lingua franca's of Enlightenment era science and technology you would not really be too far wrong. Scientists from say Sweden, the UK, France or Spain would all be able to understand the meaning of arthropod, or decapod, or biped for example.
Thank you for the Sealion book recommendations. I read plenty of articles about it. Some alternate history threads. And listening to you and Dr. Clarke about it a lot. Never read a book about it, though.
Regarding British non-use of the B-bomb operationally ... I seem to recall that the Admiralty was very unhappy with the deployment of the bouncing bomb against enemy ships, on the logic that the RN had more ships to lose and once the concept had been demonstrated by the RAF, the Germans would copy the idea and the UK had more to lose as a consequence
Re strafing ships. It's usually the result of accidental contact. In war when opposing forces meet, they fight, or one side runs away. A ship can't run away. The light AA of a small ship provides minor risk to a group of fighters, they have no reason to run away. What fighters have is guns, so they're going to shoot (after they radio the sighting). There's lots of fragile stuff they might smash, they've noting more interesting to do. I've read credible accounts in 'I wuz there books' of fighter gunfire penetrating the boiler room of a Japanese destroyer but, like HMS Highlander's pursuit of a flight of German aircraft, the outcome is not the one to bet on.
Your analysis of the use of airborne mines is very interesting! But I think if there were a system that automatically deployed parachutes in real-time, this might be more effective instead of being easily avoided as you mentioned. #TheWeaponChroniclesX
0;36:53 That's where you also use Wooden Plugs wrapped in cloth and sledgehammer do drive it home1. (or a mattress with wooden bring to plug a big hole. (Engineman 2nd Class; Repair 5 team member)
Re heavy bombers at 50 feet... the lanc was surprisingly nimble for a big bird. It could be done over water fairly safely in decent weather. BUT- not one for novices, and training is going to involve casualties....
On the topic of Greco-Roman mythological names - it can not be understated how incredibly fascinated Northern Europe was with classical antiquity during the enlightenment era. It influenced fashion, literature, art, culture, and thought for the upper classes. An educated man was expected to read (classical) Greek and Latin, and many classical texts were considered required reading for 'cultured' individuals. Positioning yourself as the intellectual inheritor of classical art, thought, and empire (In the Roman sense) transcended national boundaries.
In regards to time keeping on ships, in one of Jon Parshall's talks (either as a guest here or on another channel) he said that Japanese timekeeping was relatively straightforward as long as one keeps in mind that the logs of IJN vessels were recorded using Tokyo time regardless of where and in which timezone they were actually sailing. Iirc, this was said during his explanation of kodochoshos(sp?) and how those Japanese records from the carriers at Midway disprove the narrative that the decks were full of armed and fueled planes just about to take off when the American dive bombers attacked. Therefore in Japanese records, Midway took place on June 5th rather than June 4th.
Is that what it was? I'm not great at IDing things and never did manage to figure it out. I'd always hoped we might be able to pester Drach to look at it one day.
Question for Drachinifel regarding the strafing: The Yamato on her final voyage had all her anti-aircraft armament concentrated amidships because of the 18-inch blasts. The US attack waves commenced with strafing runs on these anti-aircraft positions to deplete them. I have heard somewhere that if the US aircraft had taken a few bombers armed with napalm (allegedly only available on the Jeep carriers) with them, they could have made short work of Yamatos anti-aircraft stations. Is there any truth to this or is it "just an internet fantasy"?
48:51 During the Japanese attempted landing on Wake Island in December 1941, the American F-4F Wildcats that were defending the island had a strafing run on the escorts. The Japanese destroyer Kisaragi was sunk by the Wildcats with 100 pound bombs and possible strafing but I'm not sure
By 1943/4 the Home Guard was a well trained, well armed, well motivated and capable field force. They just had nobody to fight. This is I think is the ideal military situation!
The Avro Manchester twin-engined heavy bomber (from which the Lancaster was derived) was specifically designed with a long bomb bay in order to carry torpedoes, though as far as I know neither type was ever used in this role.
The time zone thing was a big issue with the Titanic inquiries. But it was worse, because many of the times (both recorded in logs, and by reported by eyewitnesses) were local time, which was different even for ships in the same location (this is because the clocks were typically set once per day around midnight, based on where the ship expected to be at midday, which would be different for ships travelling in opposite directions!). If I remember correctly the estimates of the difference between local and New York time ranged between 93min and 110min, and it’s been argued more recently that the actual difference may have been 125min!
Wisely avoiding the question of what the Tuskegee airmen actually did or didn't do, to what, where, and how. As it appears to be more difficult than usual with air combat to figure out what the heck happened.
Are the actions from different flotillas and subs that were stationed at Malta a good subject for a special ? their dashes out of Valletta to sink Italo-/German supplyconvoys with info from Ultra were quite spectaculair and very usefull to the North-African front.
28:21 I think another element is also how land battles and sea battles developed separately. On land the kings ancestors would have fought in these battles back possibly hundreds of years of various scales and sizes, with a continuous unbroken generations of fighting. When you look at naval engagements they are often ad hoc, they wax and wain. Navies can appear and then disappear within one persons lifetime. You have entire naval traditions starting from the merchant class rather than the feudal system. Sinking from storms etc. Means you are constantly losing advisors and experienced personnel.
.50 BMG was originally intended as an anti tank round in WWI. API had the ability to penetrate Japanese destroyer hull plating (20 to 30 mm mild steel), which would not do the ship all that much good.
Would it have been effective for Germany to disregard the V-1 and V-2 projects and instead hasten development of guided anti- shipping munitions like the Fritz X to add a long- range air component to their submarine blockades? It seems like that compensates for their lack of aircraft carriers for long- range naval strikes and had a greater impact than the high-tech fires development they focused on IRL. Obviously it'd still be at risk of planes but there weren't many at the time in question and the range and precision mean you'd need fewer planes to launch farther away from danger to succeed compared to the maritime bombing the Germans were ALREADY doing. I'm also not suggesting an anti-ship V1 or V2 but a glide bomb completed earlier, with the R&D from those projects instead spent on making better developments of anti- shipping weapons.
Long range air for the Atlantic was gonna be a problem even if they're launching fritz X from outside naval AA range because by mid 43 every convoy had it's own carrier with wildcats on it. So they're still not realistically doing naval strikes. Naval reconnaissance to direct the U-boats, maybe but by mid 43 that's not happening either unless you're doing it with something that can run away from competitive carrier fighters. If fritz X and a heavier maritime strike/reconnaissance emphasis happens sooner, escort carriers and more highly centralized convoys probably happen sooner and more intensely also.
Not only Russia as being the third Rome, bur Romania was very consciously named as the heirs of the Roman Empire and to this day a number of Romanian cities have statues of Romulus & Remus (and the wolf) in prominent places in their main squares.
In major and comprehensive refits of older battleships (the Standards post Pearl Harbor, some of the Revenges, etc) that took place in at least the beginning of the age of the fast battleship, the ships in general didn't have much power (usually around 40,000 shp) to begin with. Why wasn't swapping the plant with something more powerful more common? I'd love to have seen an LS swapped Ramillies or Warspite or New Mexico. Edit: this to be done on ships where the machinery was already well worn out, like Rodney. Also this has probably been answered somewhat with similar questions about the QEs, but thought I'd ask anyway.
On level bombing, were small bombs ever used? A high number of small 50 pound HE might have a better chance of impact. Purely disruptive, anti-personnel or if hitting a aircraft carrier loaded with fuel and aircraft having a better chance of limiting air ops? Or, was it just 'we drop big bombs'?
England was a Roman Province for centuries, 'Septimus' is even today a fine old English name. There is nothing at all "foreign" about the Latin language in the context of England.
6:33 There’s no better feeling than when Drach answers one of my questions! Thank you so much Drach!
Here's a fun fact for you: the whole "throwing golf and pingpong ball" thing Drach talks about at ~11 minutes in is the reason why you don't see any slingers in LARPs. You can sling a stone no problem, a tennis ball is at the edge of viability, but take anything that wouldn't hurt like hell if it hit someone in the face, and you are better off throwing the damned thing by hand - at least you'll have decent rate of fire that way.
King Christian's part in the battle of Kolberger Heide directly inspired the Danish Royal Anthem which in translation is literally called. "King Christian stood by the tall mast."
Christian losing his eye in that battle is a good example of the dangers of a sea battle though it in overall terms was one of the less bloody ones fought between the Danish and Swedish navies.
Christian IV was pretty naval minded for the time and would make quite a bit of use of the Vanish navy in the wars he was involved in.
Something to remember as far as strafing runs go, for every tracer you see there are 4 regular bullets in the standard belt. 50 caliber API, armor piercing incendiary, bullets, which was a standard load in fighters, can go through between a half to a full inch of armor plate. A plate steel superstructure would be riddled.
It absolutely bears remembering that there are "cannons," there are "rifle-caliber machineguns," and in between and in neither of those two categories is "the .50 cal."
Something to keep in mind is that the guns on many fighters ( incl the f6f- hellcat) although they are many feet apart- converge to a single point somewhere between 200 and 300 yard in front of the aircraft . This multiplies the punch immensely
Looking at the ship under attack - I'm fairly sure it's a Japanese minesweeper or minelayer. If the latter - the results of strafing could be spectacular!
@@garycameron8167 Not so much fun for the poor sod IN the minesweeper....
RE heavy bombers with torpedoes, its why the Lancaster had a HUGE and unified bomb bay, because originally there was a design requirement for them to be able to carry a pair of either 18 or 21 inch torpedoes.
Air dropping sea mines was extensively done by the RAF in WWII. But not immediately in front of moving ships. Both Scharhorst and Gneisenau hit mines during their channel dash, but I don't know if those mines were air dropped or delivered by other means.
16:30 Of course, there is another major component to Royal Navy ship names that are associated with foreigners......
"Nice ship, I think I'll have that. And no, I'm not going to rename it. Because there's nothing you can do about it."
Another great DD in the line of all of the great DDs. Thanks Drach
In reference Sea Lion and the Home Guard - if you think about it, the "old men" in the HG being WWI vets means that they would have been in their 40s or 50s, men who still would have been physically capable AND experienced. I think a certain British TV program from the 60s-70s has something to do with the image of "old men".
Who do you think you are kidding? :)
Love hanging out with Drach on a Sunday morning.
336 seems like a very good number.
Thanks Drach!
Just look at the body parts lost by Lord Nelson and you’ll understand why kings weren’t subjected to that.
00:48:51 - What damage could a strafing run do to a destroyer?
Something else to note is that the .50cal machineguns mounted on American aircraft were usually shooting armor-piercing ammunition because they needed to penetrate through the ever thickening structural metal of ever heavier airframes being developed. Aircraft also usually had some armor plate, anywhere from 5mm to 20mm of hardened steel, to further help keep splinters and bullets out of vital areas.
As most ships, even warships, were primarily made up of 5mm to 20mm of softer structural steel plates, any exposed part of a ship's hull or superstructure not covered in actual armor was reasonably vulnerable to penetration by the .50cals, hence the Swiss-cheesing of ships like in the video.
However, the .50cals would not be cutting very deep beyond the first plates of a ship, and since destroyers, contrary to many assumptions, do actually have some armor and multiple decks over their citadels (if mostly just to keep out splinters rather than shells), they shouldn't be exploding spectacularly from a few strafing runs. Most footage we have of ships exploding under American .50cals are merchantmen, not warships.
00:00:43 In order to float, the mine would have to contain non-explosive substances, and quite a bit of them. Which reduces their explosive potential for a given size. But in the early stages of the war at least, the various bomber commands seemed to be convinced of their accuracy against ground targets. As it turns out, they were not especially accurate even against stationary targets - presumably it took a while to convince people and come up with a solution - like the buoyancy bomb.
00:49:00 Strafing was also a part of skip-bombing and mast-height bombing (as well as the rockets mentioned), as used in the later parts of the war. Those required a very low-level and straight-in approach, so suppressing the AA gunners with gun or cannon fire would have been vital. There is also the unusual case of the Mosquito 'Tsetse' variant armed with autoloading 57mm gun. Those were mostly intended to put holes in surfaced U-boats, but I suspect a DD wouldn't particularly enjoy that calibre either.
1:09:00 I wonder if a rotary bomb-bay would have increased the number of torpedoes a medium bomber could carry. I know they fixed a similar length-to-weight issue for cruise missiles in some post-war bombers, but I suppose it might have been a bit complicated during WW2.
I think another reason why covered slipways came back into vogue is that they're just plain nicer to work in, especially in places that have cold winters, a rainy season, generally inclement weather, or some combination of the three. It's nice to be out of the wind rain and snow and it's also nice for the yard owner since it means your workers are more productive during the days that weather springs up.
On the Greco/Roman names....
At that period a 'Classical' education as we would call it these days was more or less universal even among Scientists and Engineers, and was common around Europe. Not just in the UK. Having a good grounding in the Classics, and ideally being able to at least read Ancient Greek and/or Latin was the sign of a good education.
So that could well be part of it. The Royal Navy had a lot of ships to name, and the people naming those ships were all a good deal more familiar with Greco/Roman mythology than they were with native British mythology. So thats where they took the names from.
You see a similar thing in science as well, again all the early scientists were also classically trained and this is *exactly* the reason you see ancient Greek and Latin in so many scientific names.
In a way if you consider Latin and Ancient Greek as the lingua franca's of Enlightenment era science and technology you would not really be too far wrong. Scientists from say Sweden, the UK, France or Spain would all be able to understand the meaning of arthropod, or decapod, or biped for example.
Exactly, that is why Sir Isaac Newton (the bloke who invented physics) published his most important works in Latin, not English.
Thank you for the Sealion book recommendations. I read plenty of articles about it. Some alternate history threads. And listening to you and Dr. Clarke about it a lot. Never read a book about it, though.
Regarding British non-use of the B-bomb operationally ... I seem to recall that the Admiralty was very unhappy with the deployment of the bouncing bomb against enemy ships, on the logic that the RN had more ships to lose and once the concept had been demonstrated by the RAF, the Germans would copy the idea and the UK had more to lose as a consequence
Re strafing ships. It's usually the result of accidental contact. In war when opposing forces meet, they fight, or one side runs away. A ship can't run away. The light AA of a small ship provides minor risk to a group of fighters, they have no reason to run away. What fighters have is guns, so they're going to shoot (after they radio the sighting). There's lots of fragile stuff they might smash, they've noting more interesting to do. I've read credible accounts in 'I wuz there books' of fighter gunfire penetrating the boiler room of a Japanese destroyer but, like HMS Highlander's pursuit of a flight of German aircraft, the outcome is not the one to bet on.
Makes me wonder about the effect of golf ball like dimpling on shell flight…
Your analysis of the use of airborne mines is very interesting! But I think if there were a system that automatically deployed parachutes in real-time, this might be more effective instead of being easily avoided as you mentioned. #TheWeaponChroniclesX
0;36:53 That's where you also use Wooden Plugs wrapped in cloth and sledgehammer do drive it home1. (or a mattress with wooden bring to plug a big hole. (Engineman 2nd Class; Repair 5 team member)
love the intro to these
Your videos are always so colorful and fun! Thank you for your sincerity and talent in creating funny content!👏🏻🍄🛸
Re heavy bombers at 50 feet...
the lanc was surprisingly nimble for a big bird. It could be done over water fairly safely in decent weather. BUT- not one for novices, and training is going to involve casualties....
On the topic of Greco-Roman mythological names - it can not be understated how incredibly fascinated Northern Europe was with classical antiquity during the enlightenment era. It influenced fashion, literature, art, culture, and thought for the upper classes. An educated man was expected to read (classical) Greek and Latin, and many classical texts were considered required reading for 'cultured' individuals. Positioning yourself as the intellectual inheritor of classical art, thought, and empire (In the Roman sense) transcended national boundaries.
Thanks for answering my question!
Thanks Drach.
In regards to time keeping on ships, in one of Jon Parshall's talks (either as a guest here or on another channel) he said that Japanese timekeeping was relatively straightforward as long as one keeps in mind that the logs of IJN vessels were recorded using Tokyo time regardless of where and in which timezone they were actually sailing. Iirc, this was said during his explanation of kodochoshos(sp?) and how those Japanese records from the carriers at Midway disprove the narrative that the decks were full of armed and fueled planes just about to take off when the American dive bombers attacked. Therefore in Japanese records, Midway took place on June 5th rather than June 4th.
48:51
It's worth noting that in 'Red Tails' the ship being sunk is a Renown-class battlecruiser.
oh dear. strafed by thunderbolts or p51? i not actually got around to watching it- you just put me off a bit...
Is that what it was? I'm not great at IDing things and never did manage to figure it out. I'd always hoped we might be able to pester Drach to look at it one day.
Why couldn't they have sunk the Ark Royal like everybody else?
Question for Drachinifel regarding the strafing: The Yamato on her final voyage had all her anti-aircraft armament concentrated amidships because of the 18-inch blasts. The US attack waves commenced with strafing runs on these anti-aircraft positions to deplete them. I have heard somewhere that if the US aircraft had taken a few bombers armed with napalm (allegedly only available on the Jeep carriers) with them, they could have made short work of Yamatos anti-aircraft stations. Is there any truth to this or is it "just an internet fantasy"?
People often forget that many of those who joined the Home Guard in 1940 could well be in his early 40s
48:51 During the Japanese attempted landing on Wake Island in December 1941, the American F-4F Wildcats that were defending the island had a strafing run on the escorts. The Japanese destroyer Kisaragi was sunk by the Wildcats with 100 pound bombs and possible strafing but I'm not sure
By 1943/4 the Home Guard was a well trained, well armed, well motivated and capable field force. They just had nobody to fight. This is I think is the ideal military situation!
The Avro Manchester twin-engined heavy bomber (from which the Lancaster was derived) was specifically designed with a long bomb bay in order to carry torpedoes, though as far as I know neither type was ever used in this role.
The time zone thing was a big issue with the Titanic inquiries. But it was worse, because many of the times (both recorded in logs, and by reported by eyewitnesses) were local time, which was different even for ships in the same location (this is because the clocks were typically set once per day around midnight, based on where the ship expected to be at midday, which would be different for ships travelling in opposite directions!). If I remember correctly the estimates of the difference between local and New York time ranged between 93min and 110min, and it’s been argued more recently that the actual difference may have been 125min!
23:38 Geneva Checklist!
Wisely avoiding the question of what the Tuskegee airmen actually did or didn't do, to what, where, and how. As it appears to be more difficult than usual with air combat to figure out what the heck happened.
As a King, better to watch the battle from a throne on a cliff like Xerxes did in Salamina.
Are the actions from different flotillas and subs that were stationed at Malta a good subject for a special ? their dashes out of Valletta to sink Italo-/German supplyconvoys with info from Ultra were quite spectaculair and very usefull to the North-African front.
00:13:01 thanks
Cool: the bot comments are being scrubbed.
on Sealion I also heartilt recommend Peter Schank
28:21 I think another element is also how land battles and sea battles developed separately. On land the kings ancestors would have fought in these battles back possibly hundreds of years of various scales and sizes, with a continuous unbroken generations of fighting. When you look at naval engagements they are often ad hoc, they wax and wain. Navies can appear and then disappear within one persons lifetime. You have entire naval traditions starting from the merchant class rather than the feudal system. Sinking from storms etc. Means you are constantly losing advisors and experienced personnel.
.50 BMG was originally intended as an anti tank round in WWI. API had the ability to penetrate Japanese destroyer hull plating (20 to 30 mm mild steel), which would not do the ship all that much good.
Would it have been effective for Germany to disregard the V-1 and V-2 projects and instead hasten development of guided anti- shipping munitions like the Fritz X to add a long- range air component to their submarine blockades? It seems like that compensates for their lack of aircraft carriers for long- range naval strikes and had a greater impact than the high-tech fires development they focused on IRL.
Obviously it'd still be at risk of planes but there weren't many at the time in question and the range and precision mean you'd need fewer planes to launch farther away from danger to succeed compared to the maritime bombing the Germans were ALREADY doing. I'm also not suggesting an anti-ship V1 or V2 but a glide bomb completed earlier, with the R&D from those projects instead spent on making better developments of anti- shipping weapons.
Long range air for the Atlantic was gonna be a problem even if they're launching fritz X from outside naval AA range because by mid 43 every convoy had it's own carrier with wildcats on it. So they're still not realistically doing naval strikes. Naval reconnaissance to direct the U-boats, maybe but by mid 43 that's not happening either unless you're doing it with something that can run away from competitive carrier fighters. If fritz X and a heavier maritime strike/reconnaissance emphasis happens sooner, escort carriers and more highly centralized convoys probably happen sooner and more intensely also.
The Swedish king Gustaf III commanded his fleet at the battle of Svensksund in 1790. I believe he was the last European king to led a fleet in battle.
Not only Russia as being the third Rome, bur Romania was very consciously named as the heirs of the Roman Empire and to this day a number of Romanian cities have statues of Romulus & Remus (and the wolf) in prominent places in their main squares.
Cathedrals everywhere
In major and comprehensive refits of older battleships (the Standards post Pearl Harbor, some of the Revenges, etc) that took place in at least the beginning of the age of the fast battleship, the ships in general didn't have much power (usually around 40,000 shp) to begin with. Why wasn't swapping the plant with something more powerful more common? I'd love to have seen an LS swapped Ramillies or Warspite or New Mexico.
Edit: this to be done on ships where the machinery was already well worn out, like Rodney. Also this has probably been answered somewhat with similar questions about the QEs, but thought I'd ask anyway.
Ships are not built the same as a car.
no pinned post in chat by drach.
Rushed or not I see no reason for the upped tempo of the intro. It wasn't broken.
On level bombing, were small bombs ever used? A high number of small 50 pound HE might have a better chance of impact. Purely disruptive, anti-personnel or if hitting a aircraft carrier loaded with fuel and aircraft having a better chance of limiting air ops? Or, was it just 'we drop big bombs'?
Surely dropping _magnetic mines_ would be more effective.
England was a Roman Province for centuries, 'Septimus' is even today a fine old English name. There is nothing at all "foreign" about the Latin language in the context of England.
LOL Red Tails and Tuskegee Airmen. The Tyrone Defies Physics power fantasy of movies.
32nd, 9 February 2025
Wheres episode 333